


I've Bled All That Kind of Blood Away

by splkespiegel



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: Gen, can u tell that i started rewatching cowboy bebop recently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splkespiegel/pseuds/splkespiegel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike faces his past in a series of accusations. Set during Session 5, Ballad of Fallen Angels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Bled All That Kind of Blood Away

“Spike, you’re avoiding the subject and you know it. What are you trying to hide from me?”

Spike had just enough presence of mind to keep his aloof composure. What he was hiding from Jet was something that he himself had yet to come to terms with.

“So how’d you mess up your arm, huh, Jet?” Spike countered, desperate to change the subject.

“What does that have to do with it?” Jet grumbled.

Spike resisted the urge to sigh. “Nothing at all.”

“So when are you gonna answer my question?” Jet said.

“When you answer mine.”

As Spike took off in the Swordfish II ten minutes later, he became acutely aware that a moment had passed between them. He had never told Jet about his past, about the Red Dragon, about Julia or Vicious. Sometimes he liked to pretend that that life had never happened at all, just for the sake of simplifying things.

In the end it was futile – his past had caught up to him, and it was time to take it out of the shadows and take a good, long look at it.

\--

“No you’re not, you died three years ago. That’s how things work here.” Annie spat, slamming her empty glass onto the counter.

Spike couldn’t help but feel a little hurt at that. It was true – as far as anyone who had known him back then knew, he _had_ died three years ago. But something about it being said outright unnerved him.

He glanced from the framed picture near his elbow to Annie when she spoke up.

“I know why you’re here, Spike. You wouldn’t have come unless you needed some information, something important, right?” She said.

For a fraction of a second Spike felt that he was no longer there. Annie was looking right at him, he could see that, and yet her gaze seemed to go through him, like she was staring at the wall behind his head.

“Anastasia.” He whispered. His tone was reverent, almost hesitant, like a prayer to a god that he wasn’t entirely sure was listening to him in the first place.

She tore her eyes from him, from the wall behind his head, and fixed them instead on the picture. “No. Don’t you call me that. There are only two people who can use that name.”

Spike was gripped then by the urge to reach out and touch her hand, to smooth her hair back, to apologize for what he did. To apologize for Mao. He grabbed hold of that urge and held it tight. He wasn’t ready to break through that veil yet, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would be.

\--

“Alright. And what are you planning to do with all the artillery?”

Jet was leaning in the doorway to the main room of the Bebop, eyes fixed very pointedly off of Spike.

“Where’s the girl?” Spike replied. Perhaps he’d talk to Jet about this later on, perhaps he wouldn’t, but he couldn’t afford to talk about it now.

He had zoned out of what Jet had said about Faye running off until he noticed Jet look up at him in his peripheral vision.

“Let me tell you something. You’re not gonna get any reward money for Mao. He’s already dead. Assassinated.”

Spike loaded one of his clips and let Jet ramble.

“Internal politics. Between rival crime syndicates, you understand? It’s a trap!” Jet finally said, just below a shout, stepping closer to Spike.

“Yeah, I know. I know the whole sad story.” Spike mumbled.

He knew much more than he would ever let on, and he knew that Jet knew it.

\--

“You should see yourself. Do you have any idea what you look like right at this moment, Spike?”

“What?” Spike growled. Vicious had him pinned to the ground, the tip of his sword digging into the skin above his heart. Spike had managed to press the muzzle of his gun against Vicious’s chest, and they were stuck at a standstill, staring each other down with grins that betrayed no humor.

“A ravenous beast. The same blood runs through both of us. The blood of a beast who wanders, hunting for the blood of others.”

The tip of the sword dug deeper into Spike’s flesh and he willed himself not to cry out in pain. The slash across his cheek and the bullet in his side burned, and he could taste blood running into his mouth.

“I've bled all that kind of blood away.” Spike smirked, tightening his finger on the trigger. He could've ended it right there and now, but something about their locked eyes trapped him in that moment.

“Then why are you still alive?” Vicious shouted.

He moved to drive his blade through Spike’s chest just as Spike pulled the trigger. They fell back in unison, Spike to the ground and Vicious to the banister behind them.

Distantly, as if he was no longer in his own body, Spike felt Vicious lift him up from the floor by his face, felt him reeling back, felt the bite of shattered glass against his back as he was thrown from the stained glass window of the cathedral.

He saw the glitter of glass shards above him. He saw Vicious, backing away from the window. He saw the grenade he had thrown before he fell go off, engulfing the entire upper story of the cathedral in smoke and flames.

He saw all of this through one eye.

Through the other eye, all he could see was flashes of golden hair and the red of a rose long forgotten.


End file.
